Deep in the Meadow
by Amarxlen
Summary: I remember all the touches that were real to me even if she doesn't understand how she felt about them. "I must have loved you a lot." "You did." -MOCKINGJAY SPOILERS-


I swear, my heart stops when her arrow pierces Coin, when she turns her head to bite down on the nightlock in her Mockingjay suit. I remember the crazed hatred I felt when I saw her face after the rebels rescued me. I remember the bread in the rain and her whispered, ″You did,″ when I said ″I must have loved you very much.

So even though things are still shiny, I remember feeling that and I remember all the touches that were real to me even if she doesn't understand how she felt about them. My hand clamps down on her shoulder and her teeth clamp down on my hand, drawing blood. Her eyes plead with me to let her do this, but the nightlock falls to the ground where it gets trampled under the feet of the soldiers that are taking her away. Even if I wanted to give it to her, I couldn't now.

Her hoarse voice screams a name as she is taken away and it isn't mine.

A few weeks later she leaves with Haymitch. I worry about them both, Haymitch and his drinking and Katniss... I don't know how she'll cope alone. Dr. Aurelius tells me that Greasy Sae looks after her. But I still resolve to gain his approval to go back to District Twelve, or what remains of it, as soon as possible. When I go back I don't immediately go to her, although I'd like nothing more than to never leave her side again. Bad things happen when we're separated. I venture past the meadow, still trying to recover from the bombs the Capitol dropped.

Nothing grows here.

I walk on until I find it, the bud I studied for days to be sure I would bring back the right flower to her. Carefully I lift them from the earth and carry them back to her house. Greasy Sae smiles when she sees me and I smile back. There are no words for us to exchange. Just like only Katniss understood why Darius was in the Capitol, why only Katniss knew the messages Haymitch sent her with the silver parachutes.

I begin my work digging new homes for the flowers until the sun is high in the sky. That's when she appears, disheveled, half crazed, and completely and utterly furious with me. For a moment we stare at each other in silence and I remember, with no shiny edges, how I truly feel about her. I tell her why I brought them and she only nods. I don't stop her as she runs back into her house with an urgency that is about more than getting away from me. She is running towards something.

I return to my own house that night and wonder if we will ever heal from the Games and the war.

Slowly, we do, a smile here, a touch there. Confessions that we expect to drag us down, but only make us feel strangely light. She calls her mother sometimes and eventually my house is abandoned. She can't leave hers, and I understand this. It's not something we discuss or think about, just something that is. But one day we do discuss it. The taboo topic.

Children.

The first time I bring it up she simply sets down her fork and leaves the table. I hear the shower running and know she has it boiling hot as a punishment or a reminder. Up the stairs I go, trusting that Greasy Sae will clean up our full plates. We've told her she doesn't have to take care of us, this aging woman who surely could find better things to do. But she refuses to leave and I remember that she has no where else to go.

When I join her and turn the water from scalding to hot she won't meet my eyes. She simply says, ″I can't″ and then doesn't speak to me for several days following that. I can't let it go, though, and not simply because I want them, because I always wanted them, but because I remember the way she looked at Prim, the way she protected her in every way she could before she died. Every once in a while, I bring it up again; her reaction varies, but her answer does not.

One day, I find her sitting in the yard, staring at the evening primrose flowers I planted for her. The look on her face is familiar as she thinks over something that will impact her future for as long as she lives. When she curls up next to me that night I barely hear her whispered, ″I want them too.″ I wonder if she's just agreeing to appease me, but I know her well enough to know that she's not that kind of person. Still, I don't press her anymore about it, only kiss her and then nestle my face into her hair. She has always smelled of the meadow and the aged leather of the jacket she wears that must be her father's. I've never asked.

Half a year later, she comes to me with terror on her face and a hand over her abdomen. It's the first time I realize how deeply she has always dreaded even the thought of children. There are no words exchanged and suddenly she's in my arms, shaking uncontrollably. This time, it's my name her hoarse voice utters.

The next day she calls her mother, clinging tightly to my hand as she delivers the news the right way. This time it's real. Her tears fall silently, but her voice never wavers. When she hangs up she turns to me with a quiet desperation in her eyes.

″She won't come home...″ And she clings to me tighter than ever.

Several years later, there are two of them, a girl and boy who dart around the meadow. Her face is more relaxed now and she talks to me about showing them how to hunt. I show them how to bake. The girl looks remarkably like Prim. But we don't talk about that either.

They learn about the Games in school, they know we were part of the war and someday we'll tell them exactly what happened. What the nightmares, the scars and the book mean. But for now, they chase each other through the meadow—regrown with dandelions and green grass—shouting bits of an old song at each other.

_Here your dreams are sweet, _

_ and tomorrow brings them true, _

_ Here is the place where I love you._


End file.
